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Jayden Parkinson trial: I deserve a death sentence, says killer

A FORMER binman has admitted he deserves a death sentence for killing former Pendle student Jayden Parkinson, a court has heard.

Ben Blakeley, 22, strangled 17-year-old Jayden in countryside near Didcot, Oxfordshire, in December last year.

Days later, with the help of a 17-year-old boy, Blakeley buried Jayden’s body in the established grave of his uncle.

Giving evidence at Oxford Crown Court, Blakeley told jurors: “I deserve a death sentence for what I done.”

He also said that he relives the night he killed Jayden over and over again in his head, describing it like a ‘video’.

The jury has been told that Blakeley was obsessive and controlling and after he and Jayden split had threatened to post intimate naked videos and photographs of her on Facebook — hoping that she would kill herself as a result.

Jayden was last seen alive with Blakeley on the afternoon of December 3 last year in Didcot, Oxfordshire, having met up to discuss her pregnancy.

When she had broken the news to Blakeley 24 hours previously in a telephone call he became angry, denying he was the father, prosecutors allege.

On December 19 her body was recovered from the grave of Blakeley’s uncle, Alan Kennedy, at All Saints’ churchyard in Didcot.

Blakeley told the court he had dug two shallow graves for Jayden — one in the countryside close to where he killed her — and the second in the graveyard.

Prosecutor Richard Latham QC, asked Blakeley how he was able to get Jayden, who was 5ft 6in tall, into a large suitcase less than 3ft in length and suggested he was going to do some ‘dreadful things to her body’ to get her into the suitcase.

“There was no way of doing things respectfully,” Blakeley insisted.

Mr Latham said: “You are cold, calm and calculating when you want.” Blakeley replied: “I think about that night every day. I think about it in my dreams. It’s like a video in my dreams.”

Blakeley, of Christchurch Road, Reading, Berkshire, denied murdering Jayden, but admitted her manslaughter and attempting to pervert the course of justice, but the prosecution refused to accept his plea and he has now gone on trial alongside the boy.

The youth has also pleaded guilty to attempting to pervert the course of justice, but denies a charge of preventing a lawful burial.